Kuldeep Bishnoi-led Haryana Janhit Congress snaps ties with BJP

The ties between the partners were under strain due to differences on seat-sharing for the Assembly polls.

Kuldeep Bishnoi-led Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC-BL) on Thursday decided to snap its ties with BJP, putting an end to the prolonged tussle between the two parties which have been in an alliance for three years now.

“We tried our level best to keep the alliance working… made sincere efforts…They (BJP) are not ready to stick to agreed alliance principles. So we have taken a decision,” a top HJC leader said here.

The party is likely to make a formal announcement in this regard in Chandigarh later in the day.

The HJC chief had on Wednesday accused the saffron party for “betraying” it.

“Betrayal is in the nature of BJP,” Kuldeep Bishnoi had said, addressing a gathering at Ananj Mandi at Loharu in Bhiwani district.

He had claimed that he had been serving and cooperating with the BJP from the “core of his heart for the last three years”.

BJP leaders in Haryana have said that the party is in a position to contest all the 90 seats on its own and accused Bishnoi of trying to “break the ties”.

The alliance between BJP, which is eyeing to wrest power from ruling Congress, and HJC has seen a rift since the Lok Sabha polls, as HJC failed to win the two seats it contested while BJP bagged seven constituencies.

The ties between the partners were under strain due to differences on seat-sharing for the Assembly polls, with Bishnoi seeking 45 of the 90 seats and demanding that he be declared the Chief Ministerial candidate of the alliance, both of which the BJP is opposing.

Bishnoi, younger son of former chief minister late Bhajan Lal, tore into the BJP’s claim of having many deserving candidates for the post of Chief Minister, saying many of them have lost successive elections.

“Most of these candidates (who claim to be future Chief Minister) have even forgotten when they last contested the polls,” he had said without naming anyone.